UAV updateEx-CIA head praises drone warfare

Published 22 March 2011

More than forty people were killed in Pakistan last week in a U.S. drone attack near the Afghan border; despite the controversial use of drones, ex-CIA director Michael Hayden says they are winning the war; ten years after 9/11, al Qaeda’s leadership no longer enjoys sanctuary in the tribal areas of Pakistan where for many years, it has been able to plot and train its recruits

UAV launching Hellfire missile // Source: rightnetwork.com

More than forty people were killed in Pakistan last week in a U.S. drone attack near the Afghan border. Despite the controversial use of drones, ex-CIA director Michael Hayden says they are winning the war.

Ten years after 9/11, al Qaeda’s leadership no longer enjoys sanctuary in the tribal areas of Pakistan where for many years, it has been able to plot and train its recruits. The reason? Pilotless American drones, known as Predators that deliver payloads of Hellfire missiles (average cost per missile: $68,000) guided to their targets by remote control from thousands of miles away.

Former CIA director, Gen. Michael Hayden believes the results have been spectacular.

A significant fraction of al Qaeda senior leadership in the tribal region has been ‘taken off the battlefield’,” he said.

That used to mean ‘killed or captured’. In the last couple of years it simply means killed. We just aren’t doing any capturing.”

The CIA’s contentious and controversial drone program was greatly accelerated under President Obama who authorized more than 160 Predator missions, four times as many as his predecessor, President George W Bush, targeting not just al Qaeda but Taliban leaders also hiding in the border areas.

Hayden denied the attacks were state-authorized assassinations and added that the United States was simply acting in self-defense in the war with al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

I can only fulfill my moral and legal responsibilities to the citizens of my republic by taking this war to this enemy wherever they may be,” said Hayden.

However effective the CIA may believe its program to be, it has damaged America’s reputation in Pakistan still further, fuelling anti-American propaganda, and bringing yet more recruits to the militants’ cause. According to a report by the New America Foundation, roughly 460 Pakistani civilians have been killed in the drone campaign.

Human rights lawyers on both sides of the Atlantic have grown increasingly concerned about the U.S. government appearing to act as judge, jury and executioner.

Jameel Jaffer of the American Council for Civil Liberties said: “This is quite an awesome power, the power to label somebody as an enemy [then] wipe them out without judicial process of any kind.”

His sentiments are echoed by the director of Reprieve, Clive Stafford Smith.

Who does get killed? Are these really Taliban people and al Qaeda or are they random civilians who had nothing to do with it?” he said.

I think we’d be naive to believe the propaganda that says that firing these fantastic weapons is killing the right people.”

Gen. Hayden has not been fazed by such arguments.

It has been a very strong significant force in making the al Qaeda senior leadership spend most of their waking moments worrying about their survival, rather than threatening yours or mine. And that is a war-winning effort,” he told me.

Other highly-respected and experienced voices in the intelligence community do not share Hayden’s view about winning the war.

In her first television interview, Baroness Manningham-Buller, former director general of MI5 who has forty years of experience fighting terrorism, was asked whether she thought the war was winnable.

She replied: “Not in a military sense. There won’t be a Waterloo or an al-Alamein.”

The terminology about winning the war on terror was not something that I ever subscribed to.

If we can get to a state where there are fewer attacks, less lethal attacks, fewer young people being drawn in, less causes, resolution of the Palestinian question, I think we can get to a stage where the threat is thus reduced.”

At the end of the interview, given her long experience in fighting terrorism in Northern Ireland and her intimate knowledge of the secret talks between MI5 and the IRA, the Baroness was asked whether al Qaeda should be spoken to as once with the IRA.

I would hope that people are trying to do so,” said the Baroness.

It’s always better to talk to the people who are attacking you than attacking them, if you can.

I don’t know whether they are, but I would hope that people are trying to reach out to the Taliban, to people on the edges of al Qaeda to talk to them.”

She was then asked whether she thought that al Qaeda would listen. “I don’t know,” she said. “Doesn’t mean to say it’s not worth trying.”